The phone is pretty much the same as the Google Nexus One as far as hardware is concerned. Battery life is something that can bite if you're not aware of what eats power (though this is a common problem with smart phones) so you'll probably need to get into the habit of plugging it in to a charger when you go to bed.

(My Nexus failed, and since they were no longer produced, I was prepared to accept a Desire as replacement. However, in the end, they gave me lots of money instead, and I now have a true bleeding-edge phone in the form of the Galaxy S2.)

At half new price, I'd go for it, with the usual disclaimers. (Like, why is co-worker selling? If upgrading to newer model, that's reasonable. And what shape is it in?)

Edit: Whoops, the Google Nexus S is the near-equivalent of the Samsung Galaxy S2. The Google Nexus One is the Desire-alike.

Edited at 2011-07-13 12:53 pm (UTC)

A friend of mine has a HTC Desire, and its battery life is pretty hopeless even when it's just 'resting'.
It does have some nice features and such-like, but they're not much use when it runs out of charge after a few hours.

My views on the subject are barely printable. Though I use it now for watching videos and reading ebooks, and it's fine for that purpose as long as I keep it plugged. For me it was worse than useless as a phone though.

we have different models here, but I've loved all three of my HTC Android phones. To the point I'm distressed that my carrier has stopped offering HTC. I've had no problem with battery life, either. Well, unless I leave vibrate on - that's a battery drain.

Wait two years and there will be something much better for much less money.

While I cant speak for all smartphones, and just with my personal experience, battery life is subjective. I used to only need to charge my phone about once a week, MAYBE twice, BUT I was only using it for text messaging, some light internet, and one or two other things, but not heavy use. Now I'm using mine more, and I'm having to charge every night, but still not fatal. I can go a whole day easily without charging as long as I do charge at night. and I'm pretty sure this had bad battery reviews too. So take it with a grain of salt and think about how much you'll be using the extra features.

I have an HTC Desire, bought largely as a replacement for a Palm - i.e. as a way of carrying databases and other electronic files in my pocket, not forgetting use as a notebook/to-do list/shopping list/e-book reader/mp3 player/satnav and for playing solitaire and Sudoku... use as a phone was rather an optional extra. The cost to me was essentially the 2-year contract (phone was "free"), but this represented an acceptable total price for the hardware. For family reasons, the phone function has now become essential, and I wouldn't now want to be without the mobile e-mail and internet access. It's not perfect, but it's amazingly good all things considered.

Battery life is poor, effectively one day's use, and it needs to be plugged in to charge overnight. However, I've found that battery life actually improves over time, and if you can settle for manually checking e-mail rather than the "always on" automatic check, this extends battery life further. There is software which you can load on the phone to extend battery life by switching off the Wi-Fi etc when not in use: the GPS receiver in particular is a big battery drain, so I only switch this on when in the car, plugged into a charger.

Standard micro-USB chargers or a computer USB port may be slow - the HTC one which comes with the phone is much faster (1000mA charge current vs the standard 500mA). If battery life is a big issue, you can buy larger capacity batteries to fit the Desire, though they make a very neat phone rather bulkier.

There's a lot of software available for free - some of it very good.

One negative point is that HTC is not making Android 2.3 available for the Desire, which is stuck with ver 2.2

On balance, yes - I would recommend it.

I'm considering getting one of those myself, seems to be the phone of choice for a surprising percentage of people I know, and all seem happy with it.

I don't know anything about that specific model, but I'm inclined to say that if you actually want a smartphone, the new Droid 3 has a lot going for it, including the best physical keyboard on any phone, period.